Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

further reading
more recent discoveries in southern Siberia and Mongolia, notably the Bronze Age
deer stones and the early animal-style items from Arzhan 1. For the Deer Stones see V.
V. Volkov, Olennye kamni Mongolii (Deer Stones of Mongolia) (Moscow, 2002) and W.
W. Fitzhugh, ‘The Mongolian Deer Stone–Khirigsuur Complex: Dating and Organization
of a Late Bronze Age Menagerie’, in J. Bemmann et al. (eds.), Current Archaeological
Research in Mongolia (Bonn, 2009), 183–99. The contribution of rock art to Scythian
animal art is discussed in E. Jacobson, ‘The Filippovka Deer: Inquiry into their North
Asian Sources and Symbolic Significance’, in J. Aruz et al. (eds.), The Golden Deer of
Eurasia: Perspectives on the Steppe Nomads of the Ancient World (New York, 2006), 182–95.
See also the same author’s The Deer Goddess of Ancient Siberia: A Study in the Ecology of
Belief (Leiden, 1993). Another view is offered in A. R. Kantorovich, ‘ “Letiashchie” i
lezhaschchie oleni v iskusstve zverinogo stilia stepnoi Skifii’ (‘Flying’ and Recumbent
Deer in Animal-Style Art of the Scythian Steppes), Istoriko-arkheologicheskii al’manakh
(Historico-Archaeological Almanac), 2 (1996), 46–59. For a thought-provoking discussion
of flying-stag imagery in an adjacent region see T. Taylor, ‘Flying Stags: Icons
of Power in Thracian Art’, in I. Hodder (ed.), The Archaeology of Contextual Meaning
(Cambridge, 1987), 117–32. Similar structuralist themes are discussed in L. Schneider
and P. Zazoff, ‘Konstruktion und Recontrucktion: Zur Lesung thrakischer und skythischer
Bilder’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, 109 (1994), 143–216.
Chapter 11 The Way of Death
Death as a ‘rite of passage’ was famously analysed in the seminal work of A. Van Gennep,
Les Rites de passage (Paris, 1909), translated by M. B. Vizedom and G. L. Caffee,
as The Rites of Passage (London, 1960, repr. 2010). It is essential reading for all archaeologists
and will help the reader to understand the elaborate rituals adopted by the
Scythians.
Any detailed consideration of Scythian burial practice must begin with the famous
description of royal burials provided by Herodotus (Hist. iv. 71–2) and with the very
careful analysis of the text in A. I. Ivantchik, ‘The Funeral of Scythian Kings: The Historical
Reality and the Description of Herodotus (IV, 71–72)’, in L. Bonfante (ed.), The
Barbarians of Ancient Europe: Realities and Interactions (Cambridge, 2011), 71–106. This
important paper addresses many issues, not least the reliability of Herodotus as a
source and the location of the royal burial ground in the land of the Gerrhi. For short
general discussions of Scythian burials see R. Rolle, The World of the Scythians (London,
1989), 19–37 and I. Lebedynsky, Les Scythes: les Scythes d’Europe et la période scythe dans les
steppes d’Eurasie, VIIe–IIIe siècles av. J.-C. (2nd edn., Paris, 2010), 229–50. Comprehensive
treatments published in Russian include V. S. Ol’khovskiy, Pogrebal’no-pominal’naya
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